Vice President Harris and French President Emmanuel Macron will visit NASA headquarters together on Wednesday, a White House official said Monday.
Macron will be in Washington for an official visit with President Biden and Harris, and the trip to NASA is intended to showcase the United States and France’s “deepening collaboration on space in support of Earth, climate, and space science and space exploration,” according to the official.
The visit will involve celebrating existing cooperation in space science, space exploration and using data collected from space to fight climate change, and it comes on the heels of the U.S.-France Comprehensive Space Dialogue, which was held in Paris in October.
When Harris was in Paris last year, she and Macron committed to a whole-of-government space dialogue.
The trip to NASA will be Macron’s first stop in Washington after arriving on Tuesday evening, according to the French Embassy. Later on Wednesday, Macron is set to attend a working lunch at NASA on climate and biodiversity issues with members of Congress and key stakeholders on climate.
A French official told reporters on Monday that space is one of the priority “strategic domains” of the bilateral relationship between France and the U.S., citing Harris’s 2021 visit to Paris as a significant symbol of the importance of laying the groundwork for cooperation between France and the U.S. on space policy.
“The U.S. has chosen France, after Japan, as a second partner to have horizontal, global, space dialogue covering all aspects of space policies, in particular the observation of earth and the observation of the atmosphere, directly linked to the fight against climate change,” the official said.
Macron on Thursday will participate in a bilateral meeting with Biden, which will be followed by a joint press conference. He will then join the president for a state dinner alongside first lady Jill Biden, French first lady Brigitte Macron, Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff.
Laura Kelly contributed to this report.